Thursday, January 22, 2015

When I
despair of calling myself a poet, and of the state of contemporary poetry at
large and within the communities with whom I feel the clearest sense of
affinity, I often look to Robert Kocik’s work as a kind of balm, if not an
antidote, for what ails me. To quote some of his own language—his work makes
our cases “acute,” rather than “chronic,” intensifying the conditions of a dis-eased
collective body, treating the patient with the help of a prosodic pharmacy.
Where much poetry stops short at rhetorical pyrotechnics and immanent critique,
his own seeks to transform the very character of our bodies and spirits through
prosodic expression.

The artist
Andrea Fraser once famously declared that something is art if she declares it
such. In a similar spirit, Ben Kinmont and other contemporary artists have
wondered what happens when the artist “becomes something else,” which is to
say, assumes a different occupation or mode of living. Like Fraser and Kinmont,
Robert seeks poetic practice in an expanded field that may make visible if not
somewhat ridiculous the various thresholds of poetic discourse traditionally
defined in terms of lyrical persona, page poetry, and inherited models of
performance. More radically, he identifies the thresholds where poetry passes
into science, architecture, medicine, and choreography, redefining the role of
the poet through practical activity.

Given the
ambitious if not impossible scope of Robert’s lifework, it is not surprising
that he gives poetry readings so infrequently and has published so sparingly.
This makes witnessing him perform his work solo all the more astonishing. Where
the intentions of the prosody, which would attempt to influence our genetic
expression and overturn the foundations of our legal and political conduct, become
instantly felt through his use of phonemics, incantation, and amulets. Much
like watching Daria Fain dance her own choreography, with Robert’s rare reading
appearances it is as if hearing his prosody, a communalized property of myself
and his many other collaborators, return to its point of origin—uncannily
appropriate.

It is common knowledge that the human brain,
except in cases of psychic phenomena and extreme experience, harnesses only a
small portion of its total potential. Similarly, as Robert points out, the range of poetic expression is
severely circumscribed by the vast majority of poetic practices that would not
seek a more expansive exploration of prosody, the prosodic encompassing a totality
of potential within and without embodiment, on and off the page, in silence and
in articulation. I hope you will hear the sound of that potential tonight with
me.